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Progress On The Handmade Smock

Making an entire garment by hand as a first project after I completed this last semester is definitely ambitious. I have the utmost respect for the men and women who made clothing by hand and those who still make a living making clothes for others. It takes lots of time and after a few hours there is not really a comfortable position to sit in and still do the work.

As I stated in previous posts, I am learning new things by taking the time to do this by hand. I am learning how to work with linen which is a very slippery fabric! When I queried the Elizabethan Costuming group on Facebook, they quickly responded with many helpful suggestion for dealing with linen and keeping it still so that it could be cut straight. I am trying to work up to using the cut thread method. Something within me just cannot quite wrap my mind around cutting a thread in my fabric and drawing it out to make a straight line. I understand the process, I just need to practice it. I did end up pining the linen to our spare bed and then pining a fabric pattern piece to the linen to cut out a single sleeve. In order to reduce the amount of fraying, I am cutting one pattern piece at a time and then doing all the hemming. I have the front and back hemmed, and half of one sleeve.

Once all the pattern pieces are hemmed, I will then work over each hem with black embroidery thread in a blanket stitch. Then I will baste the pieces a small distance apart, most likely no more than 1/8" or so, and then lace through the blanket stitches. I also need to do the bar tack at the neck.

When I'm done with the shirt, I want to move on to the rest of the outfit I have planned. I also want to work some blackwork onto my husband's purchased shirt. His shirt is linen and perfectly serviceable. I just think that a small amount of blackwork will make it look awesome. First, I have to finish this project. I think the rest of the garment I will do handwork where I can because I really am enjoying learning how the garment is put together. At least for me, when I remove the speed of the machine, I take the time to really focus on how the garment goes together and the fit. Maybe it is the thought of having to redo everything and how long that will take :).

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